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1916 



2[lje SIttBptrattatt of ttje Hoyal fogiou 



Mr. Commander and Companions of the Loyal Legion : 

What I have to say this evening is not so much his- 
tory as personal confession. I shall try to tell you what 
the inspiration of the Loyal Legion is to me, in the hope 
that I may emphasize its permanent power for good and 
the responsibilities that rest upon us if we would have 
it a living influence and not a dead thing, an outworn 
casket that once ensouled virile men. 

And first of all let us consider whence and how did 
the Loyal Legion come to be. Personally, I always think 
of it as the first flower that sprang from the grave of 
Abraham Lincoln, for his death and its birth bear the 
date April 15, 1865. It was conceived in that dark hour 
of grave doubt when no one knew how wide spread was 
the conspiracy which had murdered our great leader and 
stricken down high officers of his government. It sprang 
into life from the high purpose and firm resolve of some 
of the bravest hearts of the North to make eternal the 
principles for which Abraham Lincoln, their patron 
Saint, had lived, suffered and died. 

The tears of the Founders of the Loyal Legion shed 
at the grave of the martyred President moistened the 
cradle of this new-born infant. You realize, therefore, 
that this was not a joyous birth, nor one of elation, but 
rather one of anguish and sorrow, and of dread uncer- 
tainties and responsibilities. 

Page Three 



The Loyal Legion, to my mind, to-day is the con- 
crete, crystallized expression of earnest men who hated 
human slavery, who fought for human rights, who be- 
lieved in the United States of America as a Union and 
were determined to perpetuate the high ideals of those 
States ; of men, who, in the exigencies brought into being 
by Lincoln's death, pledged anew to the great cause which 
they, themselves, had helped to win, their lives, their 
fortunes, and their sacred honors. 

It necessarily follows that our Loyal Legion is no 
place for triflers and pleasure-seekers, nor is it a club 
for non-thinking and unpatriotic men, but rather a temple 
of another kind of men ; for men of high purpose and 
firm resolve, as its founders were. 

We, the gray-haired, who are living on borrowed 
time, who have shed our tears at Lincoln's grave and at 
the cradle of the Loyal Legion ; we, who lived through 
that fateful 15th day of April, 1865, and who swore by 
the God of our Country that the principles that we had 
fought and he had died for should not perish from the 
Earth, have no need to say whence come to us the In- 
spiration of the Loyal Legion. 

But you younger members of the Order may well 
ask, what has this to do with us? We are not our 
fathers ; we did not share their perils ; we were not of 
those fateful times ! Save as history, whence comes our 
inspiration? 

My answer is two-fold. First — it is an axiom of 
life that man only gets by giving: we, the gray-haired, 
therefore, give to you of our inspiration : you are by our 
sides and we share with you our stories of moving acci- 

Page Four 



dents by flood and field : we tell you what the spirit of the 
Loyal Legion is and ever has been to us and impress upon 
your hearts what we ourselves believe : we point to the 
Roster of our Order and show you the names of our 
exalted Companions, now your Companions. We ask 
you, confidently, is it not something, even now, for you 
to say, in very truth, I am the Companion of Grant and 
Sherman and Sheridan and Farragut and Porter, and of 
the thousands of others who stood by President Lincoln 
in his dire extremity? To say it, too, in the presence 
of those who themselves helped make those patriotic 
names to endure through the ages ? 

And, second — you in your turn give to us of your 
youth, of your enthusiasm growing out of this union of 
old and young, this joining of our yesterdays and your 
to-days, — for we need you as you need us, and, when we 
pass on, as soon we must, to join the great majority, 
"those other living, named the dead," you will have mem- 
ories never to be effaced to pass on as inspiration to your 
children and your children's children. 

The Commandery of the State of Massachusetts 
was instituted March 4, 1868 — the fourth of the Great 
State Commanderies — preceded only by Pennsylvania, 
New York and Maine. My own election to this Com- 
mandery was on the 7th day of July, 1868 — my insignia 
bear the number 853. To-day the number of insignia 
issued is upwards of 17,000. 

I may be pardoned for making personal allusions 
in this presence, if only to show that whatever of inspira- 
tion the Loyal Legion has been to me has lasted through 
seven and forty years, and in the hope that this mere 

Page Fi've 



record of years may stimulate your faith and be accepted 
by you as proof of the enduring quality of that inspira- 
tion which burns to-day in my heart more glowingly than 
ever before, for never more than to-day has our Country 
needed the service and the inspiration of our great Order. 

In you younger members, I repeat, must center ere 
long the future of the Loyal Legion. It is your right to 
receive as it is our privilege to commit to you this sacred 
flower of our early manhood as your inheritance. As 
your fathers' sons, we love you; and as your fathers' 
sons, we trust you ; and while we are permitted we shall 
stand by your side, to advise and encourage ; to sustain 
and inspire you. 

Does anyone of you ask how long will this organiza- 
tion endure? I answer — just so long as the members of 
it are true to the principles of the founders and no longer. 
When we and you and your successors cease to be true 
to those principles, this Loyal Legion, which carries an 
inspiration in its very name, should cease to be. 

And this leads us directly to the vital question — what 
were those principles of the founders? What was and 
is their significance? 

They were two in number and only two embodied in 
the Constitution of the Order, Belief in God, Fidelity to 
Country. 

These two principles are the simplest and the most 
far-reaching principles that man has to-day, or has had, 
or will have so long as man endures. The essence of the 
one is of divine conception. Belief in God is the founda- 
tion of human progress and of individual growth and 
character, and a true understanding of its limitless scope 

Page Six 



rests on contemplation. Fidelity to Country deals with 
the complexities of life in an organized community; it 
shifts its point of view to meet the ever-changing condi- 
tions of organized, political life, but never changes its 
character. 

These two principles, Belief in God, Fidelity to 
Country, are basic. They are not shibboleths, nor war 
cries ; they are not mere declarations ; they are the essence 
of the Infinite; they are to be lived. They are of man's 
bone and sinew; the breath of his nostrils; the very 
mainsprings of his daily, hourly thought and act. They 
are the soul — the ultimate you. 

You remember when Oliver Cromwell was asked 
how he expected to make his hinds the equals in battle 
of those who had loyalty to the King in their hearts, 
he flashed back the answer, "By putting into the hearts 
of these hinds a greater thing than loyalty to a King 
and that is loyalty to the Great God Almighty, the King 
of Kings !" Hence came the Ironsides. 

Do we not recognize in our daily lives the difference 
between the man who believes in God and the man who 
only says he does? Between the man who simply talks 
true allegiance and fidelity to his Country and the man 
who is faithful to it? 

The thought of the real man is of service to God and 
his Country. He does not substitute for patriotism the 
contemptible and degrading question, — where do I come 
in? To him — devotion to God, to Country, are mani- 
festations on earth of the Fatherhood of God and the 
Brotherhood of Man. His brotherhood begins at home. 
It must begin there, but it does not end there. His loyal- 

Page Seven 



ty to God and Country is one whole and entire thing and 
knows no division ; he knows no half-hearted allegiance. 
He does not worship God and the Devil. He does not 
hate and injure his neighbor to prove his universal broth- 
erhood. 

This is the ultimate, the enduring inspiration of the 
Loyal Legion as I interpret it. On these two principles, 
belief in God and unswerving allegiance and devotion to 
the United States of America, this Order is built, and 
every other purpose is subordinate to them. 

The great Library ; the great Museum of Memora- 
bilia of the Civil War you have gathered together, attest 
the spirit of inspired service which has animated many, 
but one man (Colonel Arnold A. Rand) above all others, 
to perpetuate the inspiration and name of the Command- 
ery of Massachusetts and its pre-eminent place in the 
Order. 

It is for you and for me and for our successors to 
say shall this organization endure? Shall our fidelity to 
God and to Country proclaim that we are in very truth 
a Loyal Legion? Shall we not pledge ourselves anew 
here and now that whenever our Country calls upon her 
sons, for unselfish service, for absolute fidelity, for un- 
questioning devotion, she will not call in vain on those 
who carry in their hearts the inspiration of the Loyal 
Legion ? 

HENRY M. ROGERS. 



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BINDERY INC. 

NOV 89 




N. MANCHESTER. 
iS^ INDIANA 46962 




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